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Published: January 30th 2008
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The Mountain
Here's the Mountain - you can see all the groomed runs on the side. While everyone back home is enjoying the sunshine and warmth of an Australian summer Fiona and I are enduring the hardships of a vicious Florida winter. Surprisingly it does actually get cold here, but unlike most of the US it doesn't snow. Neither Fiona or I had tried Skiing or Snowboarding before so we thought we should head north for the winter and get a taste of some serious snow. Some of the guys who had been here previously had visited a place called 'Big Mountain' in just south of the Canadian border in Montana and said it was great so decided it was the place to go. We spoke to a couple of friends over here and soon there was 10 of us booked in and ready to go.
We chose an absolute pearler of an airline and were lucky enough to have our flight times 6 times (our flights were moved from Thursday night to Saturday morning - Not Happy Jan!), experience a three hour flight delay in one of our connections and then arrive in Montana to find the airline had lost our snowboard bags!!! Delightful trip really, but at least we'd made it to Montana.
Freezing at the Village
Here's Fiona on the first day at the Village on the Mountain. It was COLD!! Arriving there was a completely new experience for Fi and I - there was snow absolutely everywhere. If you walked off the roads or footpaths you sunk knee deep in snow. Everything was a beautiful crisp clean white and the pine trees which dotted the country side were weighed down with clumps of snow held up in their branches. It really was a winter wonderland!! Our accommodation was fantastic too - we were staying in 3 bedroom condo's which thankfully had central heating but also a big open fire place which we kept going all the time to keep the place warm.
The whole team had arrived by Sunday the 21st of January so we headed into the local town called 'Whitefish' to pick up some rental gear. This place was straight out of a small town American movie, very quaint and knee deep in snow! There we are couple of great restaurants and bars and a few shops, mostly focussed on supporting the snow sport industry. The next day we were blessed with clear skies and sunshine although it was extremely cold. The daily maximums hovered between -10 and -20 degrees Celsius so we definitely had to rug
The Training Area
Here's Fi on the Magic Carpet Slope up! Having never been to the snow Fiona and I decided that a lesson would be the best thing to start. Fortunately we were the only ones thinking along the same lines and we were lucky enough to have an instructor just for the two of us. The guys we were traveling with were all accomplished skiers or snowboarders so they hit the mountain straight away leaving Fi and I to conquer the 'Magic Carpet'. For those who haven't seen one before, a magic carpet is a conveyor belt built into the snow so you can board down the beginner slope and then slide onto the magic carpet and it takes you back up the top of the slope - like a chair lift you can stand on.
After half a day riding the Magic Carpet I felt comfortable enough to attack the 'Bunny Slope' which was a long wide and gradual slope perfect for beginners. With confidence high having made it down a couple of times I decided to go as hard and fast as I could - big mistake. One minute I was hammering down the slope in complete control, the next I was sliding down the
Learning to Snowboard.
Here's Fi's on her first go at snow boarding. Looks like fun huh!! slope on my face - awesome! That ended up being my last run for the day!!
The next day Fiona had another lesson and I practised on the Magic Carpet and Bunny Slope all morning. The guys we were with decided that I was progressing well enough to hit one of the runs from the top of the summit. The view from the summit was unbelievable. Big Mountain sits right next to Glacier National park and we had a sweeping vista from Whitefish Valley across to the craggy snow covered mountains of Glacier National Park. All the pine trees at this altitude were completely covered in snow - they call them Snow Ghosts. It was absolutely beautiful. The guys decided that a long wide run would be the best for me - big mistake number two. Although the run was indeed wide and long they neglected to tell me that it was also freakin' steep. Needless to say I spent the next ten minutes falling on my arse and negotiating the slope using two points of contact - the board and my bum. After finally getting to the bottom having crashed about a thousand times I decided to spend
The view from the Top
Here's Pablo our Chilean Friend at the summit of the mountain. the rest of the day on the easier runs.
Meanwhile Fiona had finished her lesson and was ready to attack some more difficult runs. Having suffered the humiliation of having to bum grind down 2 km of snow I took Fi up to one of the easier slopes I'd been practising. She was really good at snow boarding but had one significant weakness - she just couldn't get off the chair lift. Every time we exited the chair lift Fi would end up sprawled on the ground with legs and arms flying everywhere. One crash was so impressive the little man operating the chairlift stopped the lift and came out to see if she was ok. After four days of stacking it Fiona negotiated her first blue run (intermediate run) and decided to call it a day. I decided that it was time to give the summit another crack. Fortunately for me the 24 hours I'd spent on the simpler runs had paid off and I was now able to manage these runs reasonably well (that means only a few stacks each run!!).
On the last night we decided it was time to play some serious cards -
Snow Ghosts
The pine trees on the summit were completely covered in snow....stunning. the only thing really serious about it was that the loser had to do a nude snow angel out the front of our Condo. Unfortunately Stu lost, but was up for the challenge, so in only Ski Googles and Undies he jumped into the snow expecting it to be about ankle deep, but disappeared in the knee deep snow!! Needless to say Stu was very quick to try to convince us how cold it was........
So after a week of Snowboarding and skiing it was time to leave Montana. Our first effort in the snow had been relatively successful - we had both successfully finished blue runs. Fi left with some pretty impressive brusing on her bum and knees (yes it's from the snowboarding) and I had a rather uncomfortable flight back trying to keep the weight on my bum away from the bruises, but we had a really great time. The country side was beautiful, the weather deathly cold and the snow boarding a lot of fun. I do have to say that its great to be back to the Florida winter though!!
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